Mandatory Prison For Violent Gun Crimes

Do you think 90 % of Americans would support 10 year mandatory prison sentences for criminals who commit violent gun crimes?
Why aren't our politicians talking about this?
There are many repeat offenders out there, and putting them behind bars would make the stats go down, Right?

 

It would get rid of a large portion if the voting block for the Democratic party.

 

Mandatory minimums are always a bad idea.

 

This is what I've been saying all along.

The trial lawyers also say, "If you've been victim of someone else's negligence, you deserve to be compensated."

Yes!---and getting shot by a thug certainly fits. I like the maditory minimum of $250,000 per incident. If a gang member can't pay for shooting someone during a drive by shooting, then all the assests of the gang should be confiscated to pay for the damages.

This is already partly law with the federal RICO Act---but they say $10,000 is enough.

Do you think Obama & Holder are using these laws to fight street crime?

Of course not!

 

Criminals are not deterred by punishment. That is not to say the idea is without merit. It would be costly to implement though.

 

I think most states already have mandatory minimums for crimes committed with guns.

 

Not meant to be a deterrent... just to keep repeat offenders off the streets.

 

The antigun/more gun control position doesn't support your statements. Let's break this down.
The very thing additional background checks/gun control folks want is additional laws with additional punishments, they are not asking for new laws without punishments.
If criminals are not deterred by punishment what are they deterred by?
If you want to control criminal activity by passing laws with punishments what are you willing to pay to implement it?

The whole problem with this antigun conversation on gun control is the laws they want to enact affect law abiding citizens who will not add to the cost of implementation, they don't really believe in punishing criminals and they are not willing to expend capital and effort to punish those who deserve it.
What say you?

 

In Florida, we have 10-20-life. If you commit a crime with a gun in your possession, 10 yrs are added to sentence. If you use the gun, 20 years are added. If you use the gun and harm someone, 25 to life is added.

http://www.cga.ct.gov/2013/rpt/2013-R-0067.htm

 

It's an all too common fallacy to think that harsher punishments are the solution to problems.
Not all "violent gun offenders" deserve to be, nor should be, locked up for a long time. Each crime is unique, and trying to apply a one size fits all cookie cutter approach is not going to help anyone.

 

In principal I suspect they would. The problem is that the first borderline case that comes up, where a "law abiding gun owner" is accused of a violent crime that was "an honest mistake", there would be outcry when they get the mandatory sentence.

People generally want the cake of simplistic legal codes but also to eat the option of special cases that they think deserve something different (be it more or less).

 

I oppose mandatory sentencing, period. Law-makers are not experts on "crime and punishment" while our criminal judges are and the judge should have the discretion to impose terms of incarceration based upon their expertise in the field. Our nation was founded based upon the separation of powers between the legislative, executive, and judiciary branches of government and while the legislature has the role and responsibility of defining the law the judges should not have their descretionary powers to apply the law infringed upon by the politicians in the legislature and executive branches. Let the judges do their job. The judges are really very good at it dispite opinions to the contrary.

Remember one simple fact, the judges don't release prisoners early, the parole boards do that. The primary reason the parole boards release so many prisoners early is over-crowding in our prisons caused by the incarceration of individuals for victimless crimes predominately for illegal drug usage and possession. If we removed those that are incarcerated for victimless crimes from our prisons then we'd have the room to keep violent criminals in prison but we have those that still advocate imprisoning people for victimless crime and they are the root cause of the problem.

Bottom line, our prisons should be exclusively used to protect us from those that commit crimes against persons and property and the judges should not have their hands tied by the legislative branch of government.

 

I'd be interested to see the effect of adding a "no plea option" to certain gun-related crimes. Commit an armed robbery, no option to plea down to disturbing the peace.

 

I would actually like to see the elimination of "plea bargaining" completely as it represents coercion by the government. The problem with that is that over 90% of all criminal convictions are obtained by a plea bargain and if all of those cases went to trial our courts would be flooded because we have too many criminal laws that we can't afford to enforce if we actually had to "pay for criminal justice" in the United States. So we resort to coercion to obtain convictions in the vast majority of criminal cases.

 

this is a common problem. The same people who want to restrict gun ownership for law abiding citizens want leiniency and light punsihment for law breakers.
Judges impose too light sentences routinely for many horrific crimes, child molestation in particular. Their records are attrocious in most locales. The parole board is powerless to hold someone longer than their sentence. Gun crimes are not treated as seriously as they should be.

On another point though, I agree that it is idiotic to keep people locked up for crimes like drug possesion and other non violent crimes.

 

Reasonable doubt isn't that hard to establish in most cases, unless you are the guy who did the crime. I disagree that it cooerces the innocent to plead guilty.

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A minimimum threshold could be established that a gun crime could not be pled down below.

 

I believe there is a great misconception related to child abuse cases which can include molestation.

http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/child-abuse-penalties-and-sentencing.html

One of the greatest problems I see is the affect of which state the abuse took place in because this reflects legislative interference with the judicial branch of government based upon sentencing guidelines.

The judge listens to the evidence presented including any mitigating factors related to the case. The judge in the best position to make the discretionary determination of sentencing related to the specifics of the case where mandatory sentencing don't take into account the mitigating factors that could lead to both longer or shorter sentencing being imposed.

Most people probably aren't aware of the fact that criminal judges typically attend conferences with other judges where sentencing is a major issue for them. They really know what they're doing when it comes to reviewing the actual case and making a determination related to sentencing. We often sit outside of the courtroom and second guess their decisions but we don't know the facts. We jump to conclusions.

Of note because of the massive use of plea bargaining in our criminal justice system it's generally the prosecutor that determines the sentence and not the judge. For example, a person could actually take a shot at a person with a gun which would be "attempted murder with a firearm" but the plea bargain made by the prosecutor is for the lessor charge of "reckless endangerment with a firearm" so the person receives a much lighter sentence from the judge.

 

In the more free states in America, we have something called a "castle doctrine"---this is an alien concept in the UK. You can't be charged if there is enough evidnce that you acted in self defence.

Common sujects in the UK are little more than glorified serfs, who don't have the rights of kings and other more wealthy and powerful people who can properly defend themselves.

 

That might make some sense if I didn't personally witness several cases locally like the one where a man admitted raping a 2 year old girl, was let out on $10K bail, and later received a light sentence. Your comments highlight the issue I raised. Lieniency is a real problem!!!

 

There is no requirement for the accused to establish anything in a criminal case and yes, innocent people probably go to jail based upon plea bargians all of the time where the government exerts coercion to obtain a conviction. The most notable case is probably the conviction of Tommy Chong where he was unquestionably a victim of government entrapment but the government threatened to prosecute his wife and son if he refused to plead guilty to the charges of selling "Marijuana Paraphernalia" on the internet.

This is pragmatically impossible. Imagine this simple case. The police arrest a person and charges are filed against that person. During the subsequent criminal investigation the prosecution determines that they won't be able to obtain a conviction based upon the initial criminal complaint. If a lesser charge cannot be brought against the person then the person walks free. The prosecution must have the ability to change the criminal complaint and any law prohibiting this would allow a lot of criminals to walk or force the prosecution to always file the "least" criminal charge possible to obtain a conviction.

As I noted in a previous post a person could shoot at someone else and it could be charged as either "attempted murder with a firearm" or "reckless endangerment with a firearm" but the "attempted murder" charge is much harder to obtain a conviction on. If the prosecution files that charge and is stuck with it because the law prevents them from reducing the charge the prosecution could fail and that the person walks free. I don't think there would be much support for that restriction on the prosecution.

What I don't like is the evasion of a trial by jury based upon a plea bargain where the accused is being coerced by the government to plead guilty. That deeply troubles me such as in the Tommy Chong case. He probably could have beat the charges because it was entrapment but he couldn't do that without having his wife and son prosecuted so he was coerced into pleading guilty. Even the slight risk of having his wife and son being convicted was enough to force him into pleading guilty to the charges against him and that isn't right.

 

Most people sitting innocent in jail these days were put there by a jury. your notion that a jury trial somehow produces better results is laughable.

 

Anecdotal cases are always interesting but are not grounds for making serious decisions related to the law. For example in the anecdotal case provided above it's highly doubtful that "child rape" occurred with a two-year old but more probable that "sexual abuse" of a child basically related to sexually touching a young child inappropriately could have occurred. The man apparently plead guilty based upon a plea bargain made with the prosecutor and the sentence imposed was based upon the "prosecution" as opposed to a trial where the judge would be aware of the exact circumstances of the case.

On the flip side here in Washington where I live we had the Wenatchee child abuse prosecutions in 1994-1995. In this case there were forty-three adults arrested on 29,726 charges of child sex abuse. Several of those accused accepted plea bargains to avoid prosecution on more serious charges and a few were convicted by juries in a court.

In a lawsuit by one of the defendants a jury determined that the lead investigator, who happened to be the step-father of one of the supposed victims and shouldn't have been on the case, as well as Child Protective Services employees had coerced the children involved into making false statements.

Later all of the convictions were eventually overturned even though some had served their entire sentences by the time their convictions were overturned.

The general belief here in Washington was that all of the plea bargains were obtained by coercion from the prosecution and that the other convictions were based upon the coercion of the child witnesses and that no sexual abuse ever happened.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wenatchee_child_abuse_prosecutions

As I mentioned I don't like plea bargains because they reflect coercion and whether we look at the case of the 2 year-old "rape" conviction or the Wenatchee child abuse prosecutions the plea bargains both reflect coercion by the prosecution related to plea bargains and the Wenatchee case also reflects coercion of the child witnesses by the prosecution where the cases went to trial.

We shouldn't have any coercion in our criminal justice system.

 

Well first, I never said anything about the person being at home. Anyway, the caste doctrine isn't an alien concept in the UK (Do you think it got it's name from a nation with no castles?). We have similar self-defence laws which evolved from the very same principals as yours (albeit with subtle cultural differences). We're generally not as ignorant of things outside our own borders, such as your "glorified serfs" jingoistic trash demonstrates.

Regardless, my point stands. Be it in their home or not, a borderline case would inevitably come about, as have happened in the past, where a majority (or vocal minority) of the public believe the suspect was innocent or acting in self defence but a judge or jury disagrees. Suddenly the supporters of mandatory sentences for those violent criminals discover the problems with such simplistic solutions.

 

Ignoring my issues with plea bargains let's just address why this isn't pragmatically possible.

1) Define a violent gun crime.

Even if a gun is used in a crime it doesn't imply that violence was a result. A person can walk up to a teller in a bank and show a gun and demand the money, the teller gives the robber the money, and the bank robber walks out. No violence occured although there was the potential for violence.

2) Our courts are already over-flowing with criminal cases.

The mandator 10-year sentence give a defendant about 10-years worth of reasons to fight the case in court as opposed to pleading guilty.

3) Our prisons are overflowing.

The mandatory 10-yr sentence would add to prision overcrowding so it's going to cost a lot more money to impose this minimum sentence in cases where it might not be warranted today. Of course this could be mitigated by not sending people to prison for victimless crimes but there is no indication that this is likely to happen.

4) A violent crime is a violent crime.

There is really no difference between a woman that is raped at gun-point and a woman raped at knife-point so why would there be "different" sentencing guidelines for the two identical violent crimes?

 

There is a fundamental difference between the US and the UK. In the US as "citizens" we have the inalienable Right of Self-Defense against acts of aggression while in the UK as "subjects" they have the Statutory Priviledge of Self-Defense against acts of aggression.

Of course even here in the US most are ignorant of Inalienable Rights. For example if a person breaks into our home we have the Right to Defend ourselves when they threaten us with imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm we can resist that aggression with deadly force (i.e. shoot them with a gun). We don't have an Inalienable Right to shoot them in the back as they attempt to flee from our home as they don't represent an imminent threat of death or bodily harm when they're running away from us.

A person could be tried and convicted of murder if they shoot a burglar in the back when the burgler is attempting to flee from the home and sending such a person to prison for 10-years in such a case is an absurd proposition. They don't really represent a threat to society by their actions of shooting a burgler in the back that is attempting to flee.

A "violent gun crime" but the judge would understand the extenuating circumstances and not impose a 10-year sentence for such a crime. The law could but a reasonable person would not.